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Callas Prime
Planetary History Callas Prime is in the heartland of the New Callas Republic, and the planet from which the whole sector's name is derived. Callas Prime is an Earth-like planet which has seen the very best and worst humanity has had to offer, and through it all, the Callasian population has remained firmly entrenched on their planet, unwilling to give it up to aggressors or nature. Settlement Records of the year of Callas Prime's settlement were lost in the period of upheaval that followed the dissolution of the Callas Republic. However, strong folklore exists around the intrepid colonists who first set foot on the seemingly paradisiacal world. It's said they spent days observing the wildlife, living out of their landed colony ships whilst enthralled with the nature of the planet. The climate varied across the globe in a fashion not too different from Earth's, and on the Cambria continent the settlers first landed on, the resources available were more than sufficient for the colony to flourish, nevermind what their corporate sponsors had packed the settlement ships with. Callasian society's mythical golden age began, with the establishment of most of the major cities on Cambria before they expanded outward to outlying continents. Callasian culture diversified, and in the space of a few centuries, they had formed a thriving culture all on their own. Uprising Corporate sponsors watched from afar as Callas Prime developed its culture, steadily building a society that appeared independent of their interests in its legislation, but wholly dependent upon them in economy. They were entirely caught off guard when the very first uprising began in Cambria, claiming the name of the Callas Republic, they proceeded to aggressively expand and conquer the rest of the planet in o rder to "liberate their Callasian sister-states from their corporate oppressor." The Republic cut Callas Prime off from its sponsors after a particularly egregious battle that reduced the capital of the Alban continent to rubble. Callas Prime wasn't the only habitable planet in the system, or even the sector. When word of what went on in the sector's capital, the rebellion spread to multiple worlds throughout the sector, and the corporate sponsors of Callas Prime an d its sister planets faced disaster. They had invested countless fortunes in the development of the sector ad it's enterprises, and they were determined to get it back. Antebellum For a time, the Callas Republic existed unopposed, spreading outward from Callas Prime to outlying systems. It brought with it a culture of individualism and liberality, denouncing the corporation while placing the man on a pedestal. All this time, Callas Prime remained at the center of it all. The capital became the home of its governing philosophy, which created a strange, almost contradictory culture that both reviled corporations while simultaneously revering their forerunner, the individual businessman and the small businesses they run. The Callas Republic was paranoid of its corporate neighbors in spite of the calm and collected manner they were dealt with. Travel to Callas Prime, the seat of government of the Callas Republic was strictly monitored, to such an extent that those involved with corporations could not even set foot on the planet, until The ICC sent an ambassador to Callas Prime. The first to set foots on the planet in centuries, his offer was received with outrage by citizens of the First Free Planet. The ICC was willing to acknowledge the Callas Republic as a corporate body, citing the assets it seized from the sector's corporate sponsors as legitimate in spite of damages filed against the Republic for its insurrection. There were riots in almost every major city on Callas Prime, protesting a union with the ICC as a violation of the principles upon which their government was founded. Things came to a head the day of the negotiations. The ICC's ambassador was found strung up in the Adjudicator's Hall, tortured and murdered in a grisly display for all of Callas Prime to see. The government went into chaos and shut off contact to the greater sector as they found the public opinion divided between sending the body back as a statement and actually trying to cover up the murder entirely. Naturally, this did not work. The ICC cut of all diplomatic relations with the Callas Republic and put in place heavy sanctions against the government, cutting them off entirely from the greater galaxy, economically. The Republic was faced with a crisis, and it hit nowhere quite as hard as it did Callas Prime. While in antiquity the planet supposedly had the resources to support itself, that had become a thing of the past. Within a few years of the sanctions being put in place, they were already feeling the effects in every major city. People starved in the streets. Transportation became a province of the rich. The government declared martial law to protect the people from themselves, and the dream of a free and happy Republic went kicking and screaming into the night. Isolation The shortages of material goods were what actually hit the people of Callas Prime the hardest. As a planet which, at this point in its history, relied a great deal on others to maintain a high quality of life, it was entirely unprepared for the harsh measures it would have to take to maintain itself. The government ordered large sections of land reserved for the sake of nature to be converted into manufacturing facilities so that the now isolated Republic could become self-sufficient. They were successful in sustaining the wealth and quality of life on the continent of Cambria, but the rest of the planet faced dire supply shortages even as they toiled to keep Cambria prosperous. Eventually the consequences touched the capital of Callas, and desperate measures were authorized. Cambria's historic forests and plains, which settlers had supposedly delighted upon when they landed, were razed to the ground to make way for the planet's super-industrialization process. The environment was entirely ignored, with natural bodies of water drying up or turning harsh colors with toxins supposedly filtered out of manufactory waste. Callas Prime's bounty was ruined, and the people did not react until it was too late. Annihilation Troubling news reached the Callas Republic at its government's seat. News of a massive fleet emerging from Baade's Window, despoiling planets and destroying sources of income and material that were barely holding the Republic together. The government was in an uproar. It was an apocalypse event, and they knew it. Against the voting of the POC, the Parliament elected to send the homeworld's defense fleet to assist the Republican Navy in meeting the pirates at Aterion IV. The battle resulted in the annihilation of the homeworld defense fleet. It was the last straw, and agitators carrying holovids of friends and family lost on the homeworld defense fleet lead the charge in attacking government facilities, even destroying the Adjudicator's Hall in the violence of the uprising against an increasingly desperate government. Things could only get worse from there, and when the pirate fleet arrived in the skies above Callas Prime, the orbital bombardment that followed was merely the final touch. Callas Prime had recognized that the end was nigh, and in Cambria, many simply gave up and watched their annihilation lance through the sky towards them. Before the day was out, nearly all the industry that had made the planet "self-sufficient" had been destroyed, along with the capital and every major city on the continent of Cambria. Before the pirate fleet could descend upon the planet and begin pillaging the ruins of their attack, a fleet employed by the corporate interests of the sector in conjunction with the ICC entered orbit and engaged the pirate fleet in a skirmish. Unprepared, the fleet was swiftly annihilated by the considerable might the galaxy's closest thing to a ruling body could muster. The Liberator Fleet secured Callas Prime and went on to secure the rest of the Sector. Reconstruction Liberators were shocked to find how completely things had fallen apart on Callas Prime. The government had collapsed, elements of the military gone rogue, and much of the civilian populace attempting to fend for itself amidst the ruins of their civilization. They moved swiftly to secure the ruins of Callas and then outward to the rest of Cambria before beginning their gradual campaign to bring back the rest of the planet from total anarchy. They were met by an overwhelmingly grateful populace, which submitted to their rule during which time they promised to establish a Republic "greater than anything they could conceive alone." With the members of the POC in charge of an interim government while the Liberator Fleet secured the rest of the sector, they set the goal of establishing a new government, working in conjunction with ''corporate representatives rather than ''against ''them. From the ashes of Callas Prime, the New Callas Republic rose like a phoenix. With the assistance of their corporate sponsors, the government was established with promises around reformation so that the democracy they all valued could be preserved while not making the mistakes of the past. There was little resistance on Callas Prime, particularly when one of the first portions of the NCR's agenda was the process of reconstruction. The NCR's corporate backing poured a massive amount of funds into restoring the Cambrian continent, not to the industrial wasteland whic h it had become, but into the idyllic, utopian mixture of nature and civilization that so famously characterized the legends of Callas Prime's settlement. Amazingly enough, in less than a century, Cambria was a vision of the possibilities of alliance with the corporate sector and the ICC. The forest of legend had been restored, a blue, smog free sky highlighted clean waterways, and the white-washed New Callas had been built over the ruins of its predecessor, a symbol of the utopian society still to come to the rest of the planet. Modern Era Of course, things are rarely that simple. While reconstruction occurred very rapidly in Cambria, it was much slower to reach the rest of the planet, and in some places, it hasn't even really begun. New Callas and its neighbors present an image which is not entirely accurate to the rest of the planet, but citizens in Cambria merely swallow their protests and enjoy the luxuries brought by living under corporate influence. The NCR's control over the planet is absolute, with a corporate supplemented state police named the Republican Guard that helps ensure law and order is maintained in their democracy. Callas Prime is still very much the seat of the NCR government, with all major governmental bodies maintaining their headquarters there. Additionally, several of the NCR's sponsors retain military and civilian installations on the planet, and a few are known for their patronage of specific regions aside from Cambria. Infrastructure to connect Callas Prime to the greater galaxy has been constructed, in addition to a diplomatic station that is protected by orbital defense batteries. Callas Prime can be seen as an indicator of the benefits of a democratic planet aligning with corporate interests, as well as a warning. While they have taken painstaking efforts to render Cambria as a vision of success, that this effort has not been extended to the rest of the planet with the same intensity is worrying. Culture Callasian culture has gone through many periods, and the individualism exemplified during the period of the old Republic is experiencing a renaissance thanks to the opportunity provided by corporate influence proliferating in NCR space. Callas Prime is the economic mecca of the sector, with millions of subsidiary corporations that owe their existence to the Sponsors making their headquarters there. The capital of New Callas in particular is host to most of these offices, and it's here that many Callasians aspire to be while their ambitions are still local. The executives and chief employees of the subsidiaries that make their homes here are the rockstars of Callasian culture. The NCR's bustling media industry maintains a very strong presence in the capital, with paparazzi constantly surveilling the next rising star in industry to pick apart and expose his or her flaws to the whole sector. It's a world of extreme competition, and this manifests in the darker side to New Callas and all cities that detail Cambria. They're home to a high-class underworld which specializes in decadent practices ranging from the merely obscene to the blatantly illegal. Orgiastic parties hosted to embarass and expose, drugs produced by the wealthy and powerful for their personal consumption, hundreds of people serving as indentured servants in the guise of "contracted laborers." The underworld of Callas Prime is as much a host for criminal enterprise as it is industrial espionage. Going hand in hand with the philosophy of the modern NCR, Corporate spies are contracted by nearly everyone to get the edge on the competition, whether it's by sabotage, data theft, or even through the use of psychic agents. The neighboring Baade Syndicate plays a huge role in supplying the 'sophisticated' criminal underworld and industrial espionage for the administratiorial aristocracy of the NCR. Thousands of private contractors and illicit substances can be traced to criminal organizations operating in Syndicate space, if not to the corporate bodies which make up the Syndicate itself. While they'll steadfastly disavow any knowledge of criminal activity going on on either side of the border, it's common knowledge that the Syndicate is responsible for the seedier elements of Callasian society. 'Social Movements' Callas Prime is the home of several social movements which have taken root throughout NCR space, and sometimes even beyond it. Chief amongst them are: *'Terran Revivalist Party: This social movement has its roots in the past of Callas Prime, and originated at some point during the early days of the Old Republic. The founders of the group believed that Callas Prime was actually Earth, in spite of all the evidence that marked this as patently false. They believed Callasians were the chosen people, descending from a special stock of Terrans who were destined to revive the greatness of Earth on Callas Prime, and they believed the Republic was an extension of that philosophy, espousing ideas such as democracy and equality up to a certain extent. Considering the religious fervor with which they acted, they were a Politics The organization of planetary government on Callas Prime is seperate from that of the sector government, and it serves as the model for most NCR worlds barring special circumstance or classifications. The highest government body on Callas Prime (and any NCR world) is the '''Planetary Oversight Committee. The POC has a tradition going back to the Reconstruction as the bedrock of the NCR's civilian government. When all else fails, the POC of any planet, Callas Prime in particular, is the organization one can rely on. POCs are made up of Directors elected from each region on a planet. On Callas Prime, there are 32 major regions overseen by Directors, and twelve of them occupy positions on the POC. 'Planetary Oversight Committee' The Planetary Oversight Committee is chaired by twelve different regional directors elected to the position by a planetary congress. Each seat on the Committee specializes in a particular issue the planet faces. They are in charge of all efforts throughout the planet to deal with their specific issue. A Few examples of POC Seats: *'Oversight Chairman:' The chairman is in charge of organizing the POC and setting a planetary agenda. He or she is granted the ability to divide up special Oversight Funds between the different Directors in order to ensure the planetary agenda's goal is met. He is capable of dismissing members of the Committee with a vote of no confidence. If a minimum of 7 out of 12 vote in favor of the removal of a committee member, he loses his seat on the POC and an election is held to determine the next individual to hold the seat. This position is currently held by Chairman Arianna Hosch, Director of the New Callas region. *'Economic Oversight: '''This director is responsible for the economic well-being of the planet, reviewing and weighing in on any legislation concerning the economy that is proposed by the planetary congress. It's the economic oversight's job to ensure than any legislation they intend to pass on to the Republican Assembly complies with the Constitution and the Sponsor's Charter. If there is a question of whether or not it does, then the case is passed on to the Adjudicator's Court, which is a part of the Federal Government. While this treatment applies to all categories of legislation, conflict with the Sponsor's Charter is incredibly rare outside of economics. Additionally, the Economic Oversight is responsible for arbitrating disputes between subsidiaries on the planet, in anything from a territorial disagreement to armed conflict. Armed conflict is very uncommon on Callas Prime, but it is a very stressful part of the job. This position is currently held by Director Lyle Deetrio of the Ayrdon region. *'Environmental Oversight': This director is responsible for the environmental well-being of the planet, reviewing and weighing in on any legislation concerning the environment that's proposed by the planetary congress. It's the job of this member of the committee to ensure that the environment of the planet is being preserved to the best of the POC's ability, with due respect given to the Sponsor's Charters. While the Sponsors may be able to disregarded Environmental Oversight's protocol, subsidiaries are all subject to the power of the office and the regulations it may choose to endorse. On Callas Prime, the Environmental Oversight is typically bought off by the Sponsors in order to prevent complaints about environmental damage left over from the Old Republic. Essentially, aside from the bribery benefits, his job is devoted to 'damage control' on a regional and sometimes local level. The position is currently held by Director Mark Ackley of the Glengad region. *'Special Issues Oversight (Reconstruction): This director is responsible for special issues unique to the planet they inhabit. In the case of Callas Prime, that issue is the Reconstruction, an ongoing effort since the NCR was founded, it still ''has not been completed, and he is responsible for ensuring that all funding, legislation and organization of Reconstruction is efficient and up to the mandate set forth by the Republican Assembly. Unfortunately, this means that while he superficially performs his duties, the Special Issues director must stonewall Reconstruction efforts as necessary for the Sponsor's purposes. Of course, this is done strictly under the table. The people just think the director in this oversight position is incompetent. It has a history of hardly, if ever retaining an incumbent due to the unpopular nature of officials involved in the Reconstruction. It's seen as something of a punishment to be assigned this position, because it most assuredly means that your time as a Director is going to be very short indeed. The position is currently held by Director Darrie Trumond of the Navan region. Members of the POC serve for 10 standard years until their appointment is reviewed by the planetary congress, unless they are removed from their position by vote of no-confidence. The office with the most consistent votes of no confidence is: Special Issues Oversight. When a seat on the POC is lost, a political career is at an end. Either they retire gracefully, write a memoir and serve as an inspirational speaker, or they receive a job in the corporate sector and move on to a different life. 'Regional Directors The position of regional director is a governorship in the planetary government on any world in the NCR. On Callas Prime, there are 32 regions overseen by Directors. Directors run in local elections after receiving approval for their campaign from the POC's Electoral Oversight. Directors are responsible for overseeing the local government in their region, in addition to reporting to the POC on each subject as it relates to their region. Directors are considered the charismatic face of a particular region, and political analysis by the media has revealed that campaigns for directorship spend more than nearly any other position in the NCR with the exception of those running for their planet's seat on the Republican Assembly. On Callas Prime, the Directors are no exception, and their regional headquarters in even the most impoverished portions of the planet are still somewhat palatial. Directors serve a term of 10 standard years unless they are removed from office due to a vote of no-confidence in the planetary congress. A Director is capable of resigning, during which time Electoral Oversight will appoint an interim director from the resigning Director's staff to oversee the election. No Director on Callas Prime in the history of the NCR has resigned before the end of their term. A few have died, however, in which case the same protocol is observed. 'Planetary Congress' The Planetary Congress is made up of representatives from each region that are also popularly elected in an election seperate from the position of Regional Director. These elections are much less popular, and the individuals that receive these positions don't need the same charisma that an aspiring director might to beat out the competition. The Planetary Congress debates issues the planet faces, proposing legislature as solutions to those issues they debate, which are then passed on to the POC. Depending upon whether or not the POC allows it, they may get passed on to the Republican Assembly, which maintains a bureaucracy to process planetary legislation for the sake of rubberstamping or flagging. It's not an exciting position, but it is a necessary one. The most pragmatic people in the planetary government are typically found inside the Congress, and while they have power in the legislative sense, they're a far cry from the executive capabilities of the director within their own directorship. Directors and their region's representative in the Planetary Congress are forced to maintain a close relationship to ensure coordination in the best interests of their region and planet. Congressional elections are held every five standard years. Two thirds of the planetary congress must agree with a vote of no confidence in order to remove a particular member of the Congress from their position before re-election. Votes of no-confidence in the Planetary Congress are exceedingly rare. Geography Callas Prime's climate varies heavily depending upon the portion of the planet that is visited. Amongst the most distinguished of its varied landscape are three of its most prominent continents: Cambria, Alban and Caledon. 'Cambria' Cambria is the primary continent of Callas Prime and is the seat of government of the NCR as a whole. Historically, the climate was described as a green paradise, filled with bountiful forests and open green plains. Along the eastern coast and in the Cambrian heartland there are strings of mountains, with those close to New Callas referred to as the Cambrian Gates, while the coastal range is officially named The Great Wall. In history, the majority of Cambria was covered in nature. Since it was raised from the ashes of Callas however, New Callas has expanded from a metropolis into a megalopolis, covering land in the heartland of Cambria all the way out to the western continent. New Callas is an absolutely massive city that plays host to nearly a third of the entire planet's population, and its urban sprawl can readily be seen from orbit at all times of the day. However, the Sponsors took active steps during the reconstruction to ensure the nature of Cambria would be revived and preserved. Throughout every major city on the continent, there exists countless parks and gardens dedicated to showcasing some of the life that once stood in the city's stead, ensuring that most urbanites still experience the bounty their planet has to offer. For many, trips to such parks have completely satisfied their desire to explore nature, and since the NCR launched programs to proliferate these parks, reconstruction and environmental lobbies have received significantly less donations and media coverage. New Callas is not the only city that sits in Cambria. The list includes: *New Callas *Camway *Cerskine *Clyde Suburban areas are more common around Cerskine and Clyde, in addition to private sponsor facilities which maintain a work population in their vicinity out in the wilderness. Travelling off of pre-screened routes, particularly without escort is prohibited, as part of the Reconstruction effort required that the Sponsors revive several deadly predator species which can prove hazardous to the health of individuals who are not specially trained to combat them. 'Alban' Planetary Population Distribution * 13% Gene-Conditioned Homotype; Augmented * 64% Human; Augmented * 16% Base-line Human * 5% Posthuman * 2% Human Neurosuperior; Augmented population estimates are based on latest census data with a 4.56% margin of error Category:World Category:About Category:NCR